A first time mum who thought her exhaustion and migraine were pregnancy symptoms was stunned to discover she had a tumour the size of a grapefruit between her lungs. Kirsty Axworthy was around 12 weeks pregnant when she started experiencing symptoms including high blood pressure and night sweats.
But even weeks after she gave birth to her daughter Elle Axworthy last May alarm bells started to ring as her symptoms worsened rather than subsided. The 26-year-old was eventually diagnosed with stage one Non-Hodgkin's primary mediastinal large b-cell Lymphoma last July - a cancer that develops when white blood cells that help fight infection become abnormal.
The sales executive for new-build houses has since had chemotherapy to shrink the 13cm "ticking-time-bomb" located in her mediastinum, the area that separates the lungs The devoted mum credits her daughter, now 11 months old, who she described as a "wee miracle", for giving her "something to live for" while undergoing her gruelling treatment. Kirsty received news in January that she is now in remission.
Kirsty has become passionate about raising awareness of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and urges anyone who may have any potential symptoms to visit their GP – and to press for answers until they're received. Kirsty, from Perthshire in Scotland, said: "The doctor said that if I didn't get it out and it carried on growing I probably would have ended up suffocating because my lungs would have just collapsed because of the area it's in. It's a fast-growing, aggressive form of lymphoma.
"He said that if I didn't start chemotherapy in the next couple of weeks, I don't even know how long I would have, to be honest. I'm really lucky that it was caught in time. It was like a ticking-time-bomb. It's quite scary actually. The tumour was around 13cm when I was diagnosed and they said it was about the size of a grapefruit. That's obviously why I was getting shortness of breath, because it was pushing against my lungs."
The young mum said another symptom she had was an inexplicable weight loss, despite her eating well and having cravings throughout her pregnancy. Kirsty said: "I was really really exhausted as well but because Elle was premature and I was up a few times during the night feeding and things, I just put it down to being a new mum.
About four weeks after Elle was born, Kirsty started getting "really visible veins" on her chest and over the tops of her arms. She initially dismissed it as a post-pregnancy condition, but then developed other symptoms. She kept getting breathless, and her face became red and puffy. She saw the doctor, who referred her to hospital, where she received her life-changing diagnosis the following day.
She started chemotherapy a fortnight later, which involved six rounds, but contracted pneumonia half way through. Kirsty said: "I literally went from being pregnant to giving birth and then seven weeks later being diagnosed with cancer and having to deal with chemotherapy. It was just so difficult.
"When they told me I had a cancerous tumour in my chest, the first couple of days I was just in complete shock and didn't really cry or anything and then the week after that, it sort of hit me when I started chemotherapy. It's hard enough going through chemotherapy at any stage but when you've just given birth and that's supposed to be such a special time. It just felt so unfair."
As of January, the avid runner has been in remission and no longer has active signs of the tumour. Kirsty said: "I have my husband and he's amazing, as well as my family and friends, but I think that Elle definitely just gave me that extra push. Especially times where I was in hospital for longer periods, like when I had pneumonia. I was so weak and mentally and physically drained. She was something to live for really, that's the bottom line. I knew I had to get home and get better for her."
Kirsty has dedicated an Instagram account to raising awareness of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which has amassed more than a thousands followers, and hopes to do so via other means once she's fully recovered. Kirsty said: "If there's anything that you're worried about at all, go to the doctor. I know how busy day-to-day life can be, especially for mums. You think you don't have time to go to the doctor's if there's something wrong.
"But with these things, and especially with my example because it was so fast-growing and aggressive, you really have to catch these things quickly because if they spread it just makes it so much more difficult to treat. If you think there's something not right, doctors can put a lot of things down to anxiety and just give you tablets to mask things, but you really have to get to the root of the problem, that's key. Just press on GPs for answers, 100 per cent."
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